“Why are you still here?” I asked.

“When you went outside I looked for a back door, but there wasn’t one, and where could I go anyway?” she asked. “Maybe Leon’s waiting around outside somewhere.”

The thought of that killer lurking outside my door made me queasy again.

“How did he know you were here?”

“He made me come,” she said in a pained tone. “He told me to come in and get his property from William or else he was gonna break somebody’s neck.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I got that.”

“You have to help me, Mr. Minton.”

“I can go to the market next door and use their phone to call the police,” I offered.

“No. No, not the police.”

“Why not? He’s threatenin’ you and he almost killed me.”

“Leon has a lot of friends,” she said. “Even if he gets arrested, he’ll send somebody after me, and maybe you too.”

“Me? Honey, I don’t know either one’a you. All I was doin’ was sittin’ here mindin’ my own business.” I thought of Fearless then, of how he was always saying how he was minding his own business when all hell broke loose.

“But now that he’s seen you, he might think that you’re in this with me.”

“In what? I don’t even know you.”

Elana reached out and touched my chest then. It might sound like a silly gesture, but when a woman like that lays hands on you, it’s hard to ignore.

“Listen, honey,” I said, despite my thrumming heart. “You’re gorgeous. I only meet a woman like you about once every five years or so. But when I do, somebody always ends up wantin’ to kill me. And you know I could find me an ugly girl, be half as happy, but live ten times as long. I don’t want anything to do with you or your boyfriend or your ex-boyfriend. So please, go back out the way you came and shut the door behind you.”

My eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough to see the struggle in her face. She wanted to convince me, to make me her protector but couldn’t quite figure out how.